TY - JOUR

T1 - Perception of income tax rates

T2 - evidence from Germany

AU - Blaufus, Kay

AU - Bob, Jonathan

AU - Hundsdoerfer, Jochen

AU - Sielaff, Christian

AU - Kiesewetter, Dirk

AU - Weimann, Joachim

N1 - Funding information: ASSESSMENT OF THE USE AND VALUE OF ENGINEERING GREY LITERATURE The information seeking behaviour of engineers has been well documented, notably in the AIM-UK research (25), NASA/DOD sponsored Knowledge Diffusion Research Project (26), and also the EURILIA (European Initiative in Libraries and Information in Aerospace) project, funded by the EC Action Programme (27,28,29). From these studies it is known when information is needed in the research process and also the reasons why report information is used. What is unknown is how valuable technical reports are to engineers when compared with other sources of information. For this reason MAGiC has chosen to examine this aspect rather than repeat a survey of use. Technical reports are an important and unique source of engineering information. This has been recognised in the US where federal technical reports are freely available via the Internet. UK reports are hard to identify, locate and obtain. Within the context of new initiatives promoting cross-sectoral partnership and collaboration, the Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) and British Library Co-operation and Partnership Programme (BLCCP) have funded the MAGiC project. MAGiC aims to provide the UK engineering community with a greater awareness of, and access to, key collections of technical reports by: mapping UK report collections; developing a methodology for prioritising digitisation of reports; providing an entry point to search and browse widely distributed resources; developing a core electronic archive of engineering report literature; evaluating the feasibility of creating a commercial service based on the supply of electronic documents. An exposition of work in progress is given with a projection of how the demonstrator service will operate. A call for help with the project in locating report collections within academia, industry, and government, and contact details, are given.

PY - 2015/12

Y1 - 2015/12

N2 - Tax research mostly uses actual tax rates (“objective tax rates”) to analyze and explain tax effects on taxpayers’ decisions and tax distribution. In this study, we asked subjects to estimate how high their tax burden is, and to give their opinion if, or to what extent, they would consider this perceived tax rate as fair. We provide evidence that the perceived income tax rates significantly deviate from the objective tax rates for the majority of taxpayers. The degree of misperception can be partly explained by the individual’s level of education, income, and whether the individual included social security contribution in their income tax rate estimation. Comparing the perceived tax rate with the tax rate that is regarded as fair, we find that the individual’s level of education and age influence their estimate. Taking the results of Schmoelders (Das Irrationale in der öffentlichen Finanzwirtschaft. Rowohlt, Hamburg, 1960) into account, we show that the income tax misperception as well as the relation between perceived and fair income tax rates is surprisingly stable over time. The main distinction is that there is no more difference in tax perception between self-employed and employed people nowadays.

AB - Tax research mostly uses actual tax rates (“objective tax rates”) to analyze and explain tax effects on taxpayers’ decisions and tax distribution. In this study, we asked subjects to estimate how high their tax burden is, and to give their opinion if, or to what extent, they would consider this perceived tax rate as fair. We provide evidence that the perceived income tax rates significantly deviate from the objective tax rates for the majority of taxpayers. The degree of misperception can be partly explained by the individual’s level of education, income, and whether the individual included social security contribution in their income tax rate estimation. Comparing the perceived tax rate with the tax rate that is regarded as fair, we find that the individual’s level of education and age influence their estimate. Taking the results of Schmoelders (Das Irrationale in der öffentlichen Finanzwirtschaft. Rowohlt, Hamburg, 1960) into account, we show that the income tax misperception as well as the relation between perceived and fair income tax rates is surprisingly stable over time. The main distinction is that there is no more difference in tax perception between self-employed and employed people nowadays.

KW - Behavioral public finance

KW - Perceived tax burden

KW - Perceived tax fairness

KW - Tax illusion

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84946495136&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10657-013-9389-9

DO - 10.1007/s10657-013-9389-9

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84946495136

VL - 40

SP - 457

EP - 478

JO - European Journal of Law and Economics

JF - European Journal of Law and Economics

SN - 0929-1261

IS - 3

ER -